


a fury defiant

by nasaplates



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Demons, Depression, M/M, Mild Blood, Monsterfucking, Religious Discussion, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, weirdly more tender than it sounds but take care of yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-16 13:40:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21271946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nasaplates/pseuds/nasaplates
Summary: Baekhyun stood on the highest rooftop of the city, watching all the glittering might of the human mind unfold below him in the night.





	a fury defiant

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THE TAGS!!! this fic deals with triggering content so PLEASE read safely and tap out at any point <3
> 
> Monsterfest mods: you're lovely <3
> 
> to the prompter, I hope I did your concept justice
> 
> to my betas: love you SO much <333

Baekyun stood on the highest rooftop in the city. It didn’t matter which city, not to him, not after aeons of existence here on this living rock spinning through the cosmos, created by a God that had forsaken him. Or maybe he had forsaken Him, it was hard to say, really. It had all happened so long ago now, the long Fall, the wings gone black as pitch, shift of agenda, change of allegiance. 

The true consequence of it all (or maybe the cause) was that the pull of humanity was strong within him, which was contrary to most interpretations of demons, and their intentions. Baekhyun wanted less to drag them down into the firey depths of Hell, fuel for the eternal flames, souls like kindling in the heart of Lucifer’s domain. No, he just liked to see them fulfilling their potential, taking their true hearts in their hands like birds with broken wings and letting them knit back together free of sins, free of the backhanded love of a God that was far too busy to look into each of their bedrooms at night. 

And so, Baekhyun watched from the highest point his human form could reach, not to see the light of God’s creations above in the night sky, but the shine of artificial stars, formed by the hands of mortals, a force that went against nature and made night into something bright and sparkling, dirty and coarse and beautiful. 

Even with all the glittering might of the human mind, hunters of all forms still stalked at night. Baekhyun didn’t see himself in such light, except for when it amused him to do so. A hunter of smothered sparks just waiting to be breathed into flame. But generally, an admirer. Demons and angels were molded by God’s hands, formed of the same unfathomable clay as Him, and to say they had souls would be false. Souls are a force born of struggle, of fragility, of borrowed time. An experiment, a bet placed when drunk on manna by two creatures with more power than they knew what to do with. A question by two Beings who would never get to answer it: What do you do, if you’ve only got a blip in the span of infinite time? How do you live with such fear, such inconsequential force?

Baekhyun watched like a living art piece was unfolding before him. Sometimes he scoffed at the lack of originality, at the sheer lack of scope in the efforts of these monkeys granted brains far too large for their spirits. Sometimes it made him sad in the place that ached for a heavenly home. But often, he smiled. For what is the point of an endless life, an endless observance, only intended to influence but never truly touch, if it doesn’t make you laugh more often than not?

His musings were interrupted by the door to the building’s roof being opened with purpose. Not slammed, no, too polite for that, but with a steady hand. 

It was a familiar motion.

Zhang Yixing stepped out onto the rooftop, hair unusually disheveled, glasses smudged uncharacteristically. He was generally a neatly kept man, not precisely fastidious, always too loose for that, exactly, but he looked well, extremely so, and took enormous pride in his work. This rooftop was a favorite place of his, a place he often came to meditate, and to dance, moving with a grace that went far beyond his kind. He honed his body there in the night air, and Baekhyun, more often than not, watched with something like hunger.

Baekhyun couldn’t precisely lie to himself, not being who and what he was. He knew the reason he chose  _ this _ rooftop, in  _ this  _ city was  _ this _ man. He also knew the reason he was there tonight was out of an unfamiliar emotion: worry. 

Demons could see into the heart of a man. Increasingly of late, Zhang Yixing’s heart had been shifting. From joy and pride and honor, to something like tar, sticky sadness closing veins and arteries, the bird of his soul being coated in oil, dragged to the depths of a sea he could no longer float upon the surface of.

Heavy steps echoed across the roof. Yixing hadn’t seen Baekhyun, most humans couldn’t unless he wanted them to. A shadow in the corner of the eye, a phantom as they fall asleep. A face that makes men stop, only to lose sight of him in a crowd. 

Unknowing of his audience, Yixing stepped with leaden limbs up onto the ledge of the roof.

_ Wait _ , Baekhyun said. Yixing’s arms lifted from his sides, hair whipped by the updraft, face lighted by the streets and the cars and the life below. Baekhyun’s voice was a whisper on the wind, a seed of doubt lost in the oil slick that smothered Yixing’s thoughts.

“Wait,” and this time it vibrated through the air, waves of sound carried by something inside Baekhyun that might have been fear.

Yixing startled violently, dancer’s feet slipping on the concrete as he spun. His eyes widened, and Baekhyun watched his heart rabbit with adrenaline, last gasp of a stubborn light refusing to be snuffed out. It wasn’t going to be enough. The regret hit Yixing’s eyes at the same moment Baekhyun made a choice worthy of a human.

Wings darker than night snapped from between his shoulder blades with a crackle of what a black hole’s version of lightning would be like. The lights of the city flickered once, before coming back to full brightness. In the millisecond of darkness, Baekhyun had caught Yixing with hands as hot as flames, and pulled him to solid ground three feet from the ledge.

They were tangled together, Yixing's hands reflexively grabbing at Baekhyun, Baekhyun gripping fiercely at Yixing's coat. Long feathers twinged at being twisted into Yixing's fingertips and Baekhyun couldn't hold back a wince.

Yixing gasped and his hands spasmed, seeming to only just realize what must have happened. The impossibility traversed his face like a film on a screen. Baekhyun wondered what misguided explanation his fragile mind would come up with.

"You," Yixing panted, face inches from Baekhyun's own. His breath fanned across Baekhyun's lips and something in his gut  _ shifted _ .

"You  _ idiot _ ," Baekhyun spat, venom rising like bile in his throat, the near loss enough to rouse him to fight instead of comfort as he should. Yixing's eyes widened in primal fear, Baekhyun's form rippling into something not of this world. He closed his eyes, tightly, reigned in his shape, took his pain and fear and rage and contained it into this limited form. He breathed, deeply, even though he didn't need to, and held the man in his arms with a grip of gentle iron, so he wouldn't lose him to terror like he almost lost him to heartbreak.

When he opened his eyes again, Yixing looked back, not with fright but with confusion, and maybe a touch of wonder. Baekhyun watched, and thought, and felt, and then he took Yixing's face in hands edged in tiny scales and kissed him with a reverence he used to grant only to God Himself. Lips, or the illusion of them, brushed with gentle awe over the mouth of the greatest example of humanity he had seen in a thousand years.

And then, because he was still himself, Baekhyun grinned, and nipped Yixing's full bottom lip with sharp teeth until he tasted blood on his tongue.

With a rush of air and the smell of sulfur, he became a wisp of black smoke curling in the night, wafting away with the breeze.

Zhang Yixing stood on the rooftop for a long breathless moment, touched his mouth with shaking fingertips that came away bloody. He took one last look at the ledge and the fall that he'd so longed for just minutes before, and a spark crackled to life in his racing, aching heart. Yixing blinked rapidly and, slowly, smiled, just a small smile, with muscles that ached with disuse, but real. 

He adjusted his glasses, ran his hands through his hair, and walked back through the rooftop door, shutting it with a polite and careful  _ click _ .

***

The next night Baekhyun found himself on the same rooftop, in the same city, this time with a cigarette held between two fingers, smoke curling gracefully out of his nostrils. It amused him, the reminder of what he was, the way no one who saw him could truly tell that his eyes didn't glow orange because of the cherry of the cigarette, but because of the light of much hotter flames.

Baekhyun didn't jump when the rooftop door opened. He'd resigned himself to the fact he'd be able to sense this particular heart beating from any planet in God's universe and beyond. There was no point in feigning regret to himself. He was merely glad to see the darkness inside of Zhang Yixing was being replaced, slowly, like the tide erodes the shore, with something bright, and true.

"So," Yixing said, stopping with their shoulders nearly brushing. He coughed politely at the stream of cigarette smoke Baekhyun playfully blew out of the side of his mouth, before flicking the cigarette over the side of the building. Yixing frowned and Baekhyun could hear the mutter in his mind about littering and health and safety as clearly as if he'd said it aloud.

"So," Baekhyun drawled, shooting the cuffs of his black suit. He grinned sideways at Yixing, took in the sight of him in a nice turtleneck sweater, hair styled carefully, glasses clean and reflecting the city lights before his warm, tired eyes.

Yixing remained mute, just staring at him, stunned and gaping unattractively. Baekhyun chuckled before turning forward again, the breeze ruffling his hair.

"You're not going to try for a repeat of last night, are you?" Baekhyun said, serious, the echoes of a threat in his words. It was better than allowing him to hear the echoes of his worry.

"Mm," Yixing grunted, like taking a blow. Baekhyun regretted the pain, but not the statement. He allowed the silence to lengthen while Yixing breathed.

"You know," Yixing said, "I slept last night."

Baekhyun already knew he had. He had figured, after stealing a kiss, what more harm could it do to steal a night of deep, dreamless sleep?

"Mm?" he hummed, examining his fingernails.

"I thought I'd dreamed you, thought I'd dreamed the whole night," Yixing said, gaining confidence.

"Maybe you did," Baekhyun smirked, tucking an errant lock of hair behind Yixing's ear. Yixing shivered. "Maybe you're still dreaming."

Yixing swallowed, but shook his head like he was chasing off a bug.

"No," he said. "No, even in my dreams I couldn't make you up."

Baekhyun preened, stretching showy wings that hadn't been visible a blink before.

"And I wouldn't have made up this cut on my lip, anyway " Yixing continued, fingers pressing to the scab, irritation in his voice. He scowled, splitting the skin. A bright red droplet of blood welled and he swiped a tongue out to catch it. Baekhyun couldn't help but track the movement.

The demon reached a lazy hand out, set his fingertips on Yixing's cheek, brushed his thumb slowly across his lip, gathering another droplet of blood on the pad. He smeared it across Yixing's upper lip, leaving it red and wet. The uptick in Yixing's heart rate was gratifying, but he still had questions to answer before taking all that Yixing so clearly wanted to give.

Hand still cradling Yixing's cheek, he leaned forward, breathed the word in the space between them.

"Why?" he asked, like a tendril of cigarette smoke, translucent, so soft Yixing wouldn't feel it when it hit.

Yixing closed his eyes and leaned into Baekhyun's waiting hands.

"I'm so tired," he said, and the sound of the city stopped. Baekhyun's wings enveloped them, no light, no sound. Just warmth, and quiet, and not a shred of judgment to be found. "I try so hard, so much, every day. I work and work and work and I love it, I do, I'd never say anything else. But sometimes." He paused, breathed. Baekhyun swiped his thumb across the high arch of his cheek. "Sometimes I wonder if there's truly a point to this life. To hammering away at my body and my mind, day in day out, no sleep. For what? For  _ what _ ?"

A single tear escaped the corner of his eye and Baekhyun caught it before it could fall. He pressed a kiss to his eyebrow, another to the bridge of his nose. Brushed his nose along Yixing's and hovered his mouth above his lips.

"For you, you fool. For the light in your heart that says 'This. This is mine. Of all the things in all the world, this belongs to me.'"

Yixing frowned, Baekhyun could feel it against his hands, in the shift in the air.

"But," he said almost pouting, like a boy. Baekhyun smiled in spite of himself. These beings were always so  _ young _ . "What about honor? What about the Party? And, everyone who's counting on me, to do better, to be better? Don't I owe it to them?"

Baekhyun laughed and it sounded like the rustle of dragon wings on a sunny day. 

"My sweet idiot man," he murmured, watching the guilt swirl in Yixing's eyes. "Don't you know? That is yours too. Love everyone who is yours, and fuck everyone who isn't. You love the Party, and so you give them what you have. The people counting on you only matter if they're counting on you to be your truest self. You humans, always thinking these things are so complicated when they are truly so devastatingly  _ simple _ ."

He takes Yixing's head between his hands and weaves his fingers into his hair.

"Be you." Baekhyun grinned, slid forward until his elbows rested on Yixing's shoulders. "That's enough, youngling. It's all there is. Everything else is just chasing your tail and then yelping in pain when you catch it."

They held there, tantalizingly close, skin almost brushing, sharing heat between their bodies, touching at a handful of points; the inside of Baekhyun's knee to the outside of Yixing's, Yixing's hands on Baekhyun's waist, Baekhyun's elbows on his shoulders. Ready to dance, slow and close. There was a flame crackling near enough both of them can smell the smoke.

Yixing fell to temptation like a satellite succumbing to gravity. It was a hungry kiss, a starving man breaking fast. Baekhyun curled his tongue inside Yixing's mouth and the moan that was pulled from his core sent sparks rushing to his fingertips.

Cloaked in darkness, shielded from even the uncaring night by Baekhyun's wings, Baekhyun took Yixing apart slowly, piece by piece, moan by moan. It wasn't until he was sheathed inside of him, human heat enveloping his cock, that Baekhyun realized Yixing had taken him apart, too.

Nail gouges like rivers down his back, cut on his lip to make them a matched pair, bruises everywhere, on both of them, on skin that shouldn't mar by human hands, Baekhyun thrusted deep into the man beneath him and _ keened. _ Yixing arched into him, dancer's body twisting in his hands, muscles flexing with control and deliberate manipulation, dragging Baekhyun's cock deeper inside of him.

Baekhyun could see his face, though Yixing couldn't see him in return eyes made for darkness eyes made for light. Yixing was teeth-gritted hungry, open-mouthed wanting, face contorting with Baekhyun's every move, with his own counters, with the way they were both aflame.

Yixing blindly took Baekhyun's hair in both hands and pulled him down to his demanding mouth, and Baekhyun went, meeting him bite for bite and breath for breath.

With every roll of his hips, and every twist of Yixing's, Bakehyun lost himself, first a little, and then entirely. Scales erupted on his skin, tiny and glimmering. Horns materialized in the gaps between Yixing's clenching fingers fisted in his hair. His teeth grew sharp and unyielding, coated in the tang of iron rich blood.

Forked tongue buried deep in his mouth, Yixing came, spilling untouched over his own belly, body spasming as though electrocuted, as though pulled like taffy through Baekhyun's clawed hands.

When Baekhyun came, he was glad for the darkness. Spilling inhuman seed deep into this human-hot and lax body, he was nothing but himself. He had been told, by colleagues, a glimpse of his true form could drive men to madness. Yixing, eyes still blind, hands still starving, moaned beneath him as though in supplication, as though in ecstasy. Yixing pulled him close like he was a treasure.

They lay, in a pocket of reality of Baekhyun's creation, both on that rooftop and not, as the sweat cooled on Yixing's body, and Baekhyun slowly collected the parts of his facade. When his cock slipped out of him, Yixing whimpered, and Baekhyun curled his wings back, revealing the sights and sounds and air of the night.

They stared at each other, Yixing carding gentle fingers through Baekhyun's hair, tender touches over the places horns were mere minutes before. The spark in his heart blazed so brightly it could power the city, swirling and alive beneath them.

Baekhyun wanted to bury himself in this man's chest, take a few decades off and pretend to be a real man, age his facade slowly, day by day, year by year. He wanted to watch the skin around Yixing's eyes crack with laughter, with a lifetime of smiles. He wanted to guard this heart, this spark, keep it bright and dancing and true. He thought, maybe, Yixing would let him.

Instead, Baekhyun gave him one more kiss, deep and claiming, poured all the feeling he didn't know he could possess into his mouth and lips and tongue.

And then, when he pulled away, Yixing's eyes still hazy and unfocused, he grinned. "See?" he said. "Be you. Not so difficult after all." And he disappeared, to Yixing at least, in a cheeky puff of smoke.

Yixing blinked dumbfounded at the place Baekhyun was, Baekhyun watching, unseen, from the edge of the building. Sorrow flashed across his face, then anger, then, dawning like the sun slowly rising behind Baekhyun's back, he smiled. On his back with his hands behind his head, completely unselfconscious of his nudity, he said, "I'll see you around," with a knowing grin.

Baekhyun laughed.  _ Maybe you will, youngling, _ he thought.  _ In this life or the next, Zhang Yixing. _

With a flutter of night dark wings, Baekhyun stepped backwards off the ledge to see what else humanity had in store.

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know what you thought in the comments <333


End file.
